The article says the ancient artist used an "ochre crayon" to etch it onto the stone.

Humanity has used ochre, a clay earth pigment, for at least 285,000 years.

The drawing was "probably more complex" in its entirety, archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood told Reuters.

"The abrupt termination of all lines on the fragment edges indicates that the pattern originally extended over a larger surface," he said.

Mr Henshilwood works at Norway's University of Bergen and South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand and led the research into the drawing.

He told Reuters that while the team would be "hesitant to call it art", it almost definitely had "some meaning to the maker".

There have been numerous other artefacts found in Blombos Cave, 300 kilometres (185 miles) east of Cape Town, including beads covered in red ochre, engraved ochre fragments, and a paint-making kit dating back around 100,000 years.

Modern man, known as homo sapiens, is first known to have appeared more than 315,000 years ago in what is now Africa.